


Mornings

by lovelyroseheart



Category: The Incredibles (2004)
Genre: Coffee Shops, F/F, Fluff, Gay, Hevelyn - Freeform, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 12:21:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15291432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyroseheart/pseuds/lovelyroseheart
Summary: Evelyn is by no means what you would call a "people person". Socialization and interaction are just wastes of her time, and that's a fact. But when she meets a stranger on a reluctant trip for some coffee, maybe she'll have to rethink what she knows about herself.





	Mornings

**Author's Note:**

> This is a modern AU without Supers, and set when Helen and Evelyn are both in their twenties. My Tumblr is lovelyroseheart.

Evelyn wasn’t even sure why anyone would ever bother to go to a coffee shop this early in the morning. The lines were always long, the shop always crowded, and the service always slow. That was true of the shop she was approaching, and she could see through the front window that the line was nearly out the door. What was her reason for waking up at this ungodly hour? Winston. He had encouraged her to begin waking up with the sunrise because it, quote, “will totally increase your already crazy brain-power and might even help you sleep better!”. The first day of the new schedule and she was in no way reaping the benefits. Surprise, surprise, it was hard for a 26-year-old to be inventive when running on 5 hours of sleep. God, she needed coffee. Or wine. Or both, ideally. 

She drew one hand out of the pocket of her black hoodie, adjusted the strap of her computer bag on her shoulder, and pulled open the glass door. Stepping inside, she was greeted with a burst of warm air that she was sure was a combination of the building’s heating system and the body heat of the crowded mass of people in front of her. Evelyn thanked whatever higher powers there may be that the scent of coffee overpowered the sweaty odor she was sure was also being emitted. Her body feeling as though it was thawing, she took her place at the back of a long line unreasonable for this early in the morning. 

After finally reaching the front of the seemingly endless queue, she placed her order. The employee was so stressed from the crowds that he barely seemed to be paying attention as Evelyn gave her name. Undoubtedly, he would manage to spell it wrong, if he even got her name right in the first place. She handed over an incredibly unreasonable amount of money and shuffled away from the counter to wait for her overpriced coffee. Yep, she was never doing this again.

Coffee addressed to “Eleven” in hand, now came the issue of finding a place to sit down. Her eyes scanned the room and, predictably, found no open tables in sight. She resigned herself to simply returning home, which was probably the preferable situation, in all honesty. A single sip of her god awful drink was more than enough convince her. She made a mental note to herself to just design her own coffeepot someday. But that would require that she actually consume more coffee in the future, which was certainly not her intent. Alright, so design a coffee pot that dispensed a more preferable drink--like wine. Or, she supposed, she could just buy a wine bottle. Honestly, she just wanted wine; was that really too much to ask for?

Grimace on her face and 20 minutes of her life wasted, she made her way towards the building’s exit. 

“Excuse me?” A woman’s voice, seemingly directed towards her, cut through the background chatter. She ignored it and continued walking. “Excuse me?” The voice asked again, this time accompanied by a hand on the shoulder not baring her bag. She flinched and quickly jerked her head towards the woman, who seemed taken aback by her reaction.  
“Sorry,” she apologized. “I was just going to offer you a seat, if you wanted one.” Evelyn glanced at the now-empty table a few feet away that the woman had evidently risen from. There were two chairs, and the only items on the table were a single cup and some sort of novel with a bookmark jutting from its pages. 

“No thanks,” She denied the offer and turned to continue her exit. 

“No, honestly! You can sit if you want to. I’d love the company.” The young woman smiled, revealing perfect pearly teeth. Now that Evelyn thought about it, the stranger was honestly quite attractive. A natural look, friendly amber eyes, and light brown hair styled in a short side-bob that reminded her curiously of a heart. She just seemed so...welcoming. She was oddly intrigued by the stranger and found herself agreeing before she could think about it. 

“Alright.” She blurted out, and the woman removed her hand from Evelyn’s shoulder, instead gesturing for her to follow her to the table. Evelyn’s stumbled a bit on her way over and halted to set down her cup and remove her laptop-bag before sitting and placing them on the table in front of her. The woman sat as well, and smiled before she introduced herself. 

“My name’s Helen, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.” Helen brightly smiled. 

Evelyn found herself stupidly caught off guard by the woman’s--Helen’s--grin, and stuttered, “Y-you too.” It was a moment before she continued. “Oh, uh...Evelyn. I’m Evelyn.”

“Evelyn.” Helen repeated, deep in thought. “You know, I had a friend in high school named Evelyn. I can’t remember how I met her, though.” Helen began laughing and continued cheerfully. “Man, I have such a terrible memory! Only six years since high school, and I’m already forgetting things.”

Helen bewildered Evelyn with her enthusiasm while speaking to a stranger, in a crowded coffee shop, at a time when even the birds should be asleep. She didn’t appear to be expecting a response, as she grabbed her book and flipped it open. She splayed the pages apart with one hand, while fidgeting with her bookmark in the other. Evelyn took her distraction with the novel as an opportunity to study the woman in front of her. She was dressed in a white and grey plaid shirt with the top two buttons opened comfortably, and Evelyn thought she remembered plain blue jeans cladding the half of her hidden beneath the table. She wore no jewelry, but the plain outfit seemed to complement her perfectly. There really was something about her….

Evelyn suddenly remembered that, although Helen’s eyes were focused on the pages, her peripheral vision was still fully functioning; she was certain she was staring, and she didn’t want to be caught. 

Hurriedly, she zipped open her bag and placed her laptop in front of her. She powered it on and logged in. She remembered her original plan for this morning, which was to escape the noises of construction from her next door neighbor. Despite the fact she lived in what could without any debate be considered a mansion, no amount of square footage could filter the impossibly loud noises from down the road. There wasn’t as much space between the two residences as would be ideal, because after the murder of their father four years ago, Winston expressed great hesitation at living “so far from people”, as he so put it. In the event of another break-in, he thought it would be safer closer to the rest of the community; hence, the building of other houses on their property. Evelyn, however, decided that instead of simply relying on other people to save the day, she would rely on herself. Her plans for a higher-tech security system for her house appeared on her screen, and she momentarily blocked out the rest of the world to focus on her inventions. She had already finished the designs for a number of features, such as heat-sensing devices, scanners to identify individuals who came within a certain vicinity to the estate, and small, wearable gadgets to receive alerts instantly. The next step would be to begin the actual construction of the technology, and someday in the future, Evelyn liked to hope that her technology would prevent other tragedies in the future. However, before she could begin typing up her list of necessary parts, Helen spoke again.

“What are you working on, if you don’t mind me asking?” 

“Designs...for my work. I’m an inventor.” She answered. Helen’s eyes lit up, and she leaned forward a bit, resting her chin into her hand. “Really? What do you invent?”  
Evelyn wasn’t sure the extent to which she should be revealing her designs, but she decided to answer honestly. After all, Helen seemed genuinely interested and it would be uncharacteristic of Evelyn to not take advantage of a chance to brag. She was a mechanical genius, after all, so she’d take any praise she could get.

“I invent a variety of things depending on what I feel like; I basically do whatever I want. Right now, I’m working on a higher tech security system for home protection. Or, technically, any building’s protection.” She was careful to leave out her status as a CEO of DevTech, not because she doesn’t trust Helen, but simply because she doesn’t give out that information to anyone. While it’s true that she extremely enjoyed the praise of her genius, she never wanted the stress that came with fame, and therefore kept her position a secret from practically everyone but Winston. 

“Do whatever you want…” Helen’s eyes became hazy, and a small smile formed on her lips. “I would love to have that kind of freedom.” 

“Yeah, it is really quite nice, I suppose.” Evelyn’s never really thought much about it; wealth kept her from worrying too much about most things. She found herself wondering what sort of things Helen had to concern herself about, but she figured ‘What are your deepest worries and fears?’ isn’t quite an appropriate question to ask someone she’d known for barely ten minutes. So instead, she settled for, “What’re you reading about?”

“Oh!” Helen’s eyes cleared up and she sat up straight. She enthusiastically reinserted her bookmark and slid the book across the table, an offer for Evelyn to take a look at the cover. “It’s this amazing poetry book I picked up from a store a couple days ago. A friend of mine mentioned that she thought I might enjoy poetry, so I thought I’d give it a try.”  
The cover was a light blue, decorated with small scribbles and doodles that seemed entirely random but fit together in a manner that she supposed was poetic. She’d never heard of the author. 

“Seem’s pretty.” Evelyn commented, and she grabbed the book and flipped it over to look at the back. It was decorated in the same manner and covered with italicized quotes from well-known companies. ‘Beautiful’, ‘Absolutely stunning’, and ‘Truly powerful, in a way that makes you rethink the world as you know it’ were a few of the praises scattered in a cursive font. “How are you liking it?” She inquired.

“It’s amazing! I find myself relating to every poem I read, even in ways that were probably not intended by whoever wrote them. They’re all very deep, all have multiple meanings, and I like thinking that someone else who reads the same poem will get something entirely different out of it than what I interpret. You know…” She seemed to come to a realization, and flipped through the pages of the book, skimming each title, before she seemed to find the one she was looking for. “I think you might like this one.”

Just then, an alarm began beeping from a watch Evelyn didn’t realize Helen was wearing until she pulled back her sleeves a bit to glance at the time. 

“Crap! I’m totally running late, I lost track of the time... do you have a pen?” She urgently questioned Evelyn. Stunned a bit by the sudden turn of events, she just nodded silently and reached into her bag to grab a black ballpoint pen. She handed it to Helen, and in a brief moment their hands collided, and Evelyn swore she just got shocked. But if Helen noticed, she didn’t mention it, and instead, she placed the pen beside her and began tearing out a page of the book. 

“What...what’re you doing!?” Evelyn yelped, because although she may be the master of technology, not literature, she was still fairly certain you’re not supposed to tear books up.

“Relax. I want to you have this; I’m sure you’ll like it.” She finished tearing the page out, pushed the novel aside, and picked up the pen. She quickly scrawled something onto the page and slid both the pen and paper back over to Evelyn. Helen grabbed her book and her coffee cup, stood up, and pushed her chair in with her hip. She grinned at Evelyn and chuckled a bit. 

“It was nice to meet you.” With that, she turned and hurried out of the shop, and Evelyn was left behind to watch her exit. After a few moments, she remembered the paper and rotated it around to face her. The first thing she noticed was the title, “Mornings”, before her eyes were drawn down to the still-drying ink on the bottom of the page. 

‘I think you’ll really enjoy this. Means a lot to me, and hopefully, it will to you, too. I’d love to see you again. :)’

The smiley face stared up into Evelyn’s blushing one, as she examined the digits inscribed for her. ‘Call me.’ 

Maybe mornings weren’t as bad as she had previously thought.


End file.
